The Gilded Age

Vocabulary

• Industrialization - period of social and economic change
• Gilded age - period of extreme prosperity and poverty
• manifest destiny - a belief that the U.S. had a god-given right to expand westward
• Transcontinental railroad - a continuous rail line that crosses a continental landmass
• Nativism - a belief that native-born citizens are superior to immigrants
• Rebate - a partial refund of the cost of an item
• Merger - a business deal where two existing, independent companies combine to form a new, singular legal entity
• Sole proprietorship - a business owned by a single person
• Corporation - a large company, or a group of companies that are controlled as a single organization
• Monopoly - a company with complete control over an industry
• Pool - a pool is like a big pot where everyone throws in their stuff—usually money or resources—and then they all use it together for something they all agree on
• Trust - a legal arrangement where one party (the trustee) holds assets on behalf of another party (the beneficiary).
• Laissez-faire - abstention by governments from interfering in the workings of the free market.
• Capitalism - economic system where properties and businesses are privately controlled with the goal of making money
• Union - organizations created to protect workers’ rights and give them negotiation power
• Collective bargaining - a negotiation between employers and employees
• Immigrate - moving to a country
• Emigrate - moving from a country
• Urbanization - rapid growth of cities
• Progressive era - a period of social and political reform
• Muckraker - a person who searches for and tries to expose real or alleged corruption, scandal, or other wrongdoing, especially in politics
• Recall - allows voters to petition to have an elected representative removed from office
• Initiative - a process that enables citizens to bypass their state legislature (if they have enough support) by placing proposed statutes on the ballot
• Direct primary - when people vote for the person they want to be the candidate in the general election
• Sectionalism - loyalty to one's own region or section of the country, rather than to the country as a whole
• Know Nothing Party - nativist political group aka “Anti-Catholic American Party”
• Temperance - a movement about abstaining from alcohol

Chronology

The Gilded Age

• Began due to industrial revolution
  • 18th - 19th century; economy changed from agricultural to industrial
• Business owners profit from cheap labor
• Working class and wealthy become more divided
• Characteristics
  • Abundance of resources like coal and steel
    • Led to the construction of factories and railroads
  • New inventions like motion picture film and the lightbulb
  • Large labor supply due to influx of immigrants
  • Laissez-faire government let big businesses thrive
  • A lot of capital

Railroad Industry

• 1st big business in the U.S., investment magnet, key to western expansion
• Impact of railroads

Before trains it was expensive to transport goods (limited water transportation)

Transcontinental Railroad

• Govt. hired Union Pacific Corp. and Central Pacific Railroad to construct the railroad
• Two acts were passed prior to construction
  • Homestead Act (1862)
    • Govt. distributed up to 162 acres of land to settlers to encourage westward expansion
  • Pacific Railway Act (1862)
    • Permitted the government to make grants of public land to private corporations
      • Believed the companies would profit off them by selling land to settlers
        • Lead to poor construction and corruption
    • Aided in construction of railroad and telegraph
    • Forced Native Americans off their land
• Labor Details
  • UPC employed Irish immigrants to work in the East to West
  • CPR employed Chinese immigrants to work in California

Labor Force

• Company owners became extremely wealthy
  • 10% of population owns 90% of wealth
• Problems for workers

1. Wages - low wages, no paid leave, no unemployment compensation, unequal pay for women
2. Hours - long hours (12+ per day)
3. Conditions - zero regulations led to hazardous work spaces
4. Child labor

• Introduction of labor organizations
  • Prior to 1860, unions were craft related, eg. Ramsey Shoemakers’ Union
    • Craft - skilled workers
    • Industrial - all workers
  • Knights of Labor
    • An industrial union formed by Terrence Powderly in 1869
      • Included African Americans and women
    • Pushed for social reforms (8 hour work days, end child labor, higher pay)
    • Became obsolete after unsuccesful strikes
  • American Federation of Labor
    • Craft union formed by Samuel Gompers 1886
    • Focused on wages, working hours, and conditions
      • Used collective bargaining & strikes
      • Successful in effort and won higher wages and shorter hours
  • Strikes
    • Caused major setbacks for unions
    • Employers would hire strikebreakers or would blacklist employees
    • Violence would break out during strikes, causing a bad reputation for unions
  • Homestead Steel Strike
    • Carnegie Steel Plant (PA), 1892

1. Cut wages and closed plant → workers went on strike
2. Frick hired Pinkerton Detective Agency to break up strike
3. 16 people killed
4. National guard called in to disband strike
5. Union workers were fired and blacklisted
   • Pullman Strike
     • Pullman Palace Car Co., Pullman, IL
       • Largest maker of sleeper cars
     • George Pullman (owner) built a town surrounding his factory that had strict behavior standards for residents
     • 2 causes of strike
6. Pullman cut wages by 25% and laid of thousands
7. Rent cost stayed the same even though wages were reduced
   • • Strike begins May 11, 1894
     • Order of events
8. Eugene V. Debs and the American Railway Union call for a boycott of Pullman cars
9. Strike grew to a point where rail travel came to a stop
   • This meant that mail and goods like food and coal weren’t being transported
10. President Cleveland issued a court order to end the strike due to interference with interstate commerce
    • Deployed 1000+ federal troops to Chicago
    • 30 killed
11. ARU leaders including Eugene Debs were arrested for violating a court order
12. Pullman Co. reopned and prohibited unionizing
13. The media was equally divided over support for Pullman vs. the employees

Industry Leaders

Both

• Andrew Carnegie - steel
  • Carnegie Steel Co. (controlled raw materials, manufacturing, storage, and the distribution of steel)
• J.P. Morgan - finance
  • J.P. Morgan & Co. (financed railroads and helped to organize U.S. Steel, General Electric, and other major corporations)

Captain of Industry

• Andrew Mellon - finance
  • Secretary of Treasury, 1921-1932; reduced national debt and reformed tax structure
• Henry Ford - transportation
  • Ford Motor Co. (world’s biggest automaker)

Robber Barons

• Jay Gould - railroad & finance
  • Invested in railroad stocks
• Jim Fisk - finance
  • Worked with Gould to profit off of Erie Railroad Stocks; contributed to Black Friday Crisis
• Cornelius Vanderbilt - transportation
  • New York Central Railroad (offered rebates and drove out competition; Grand Central Station)
• John D. Rockefeller - oil
  • Standard Oil Co. (controlled 90% of oil industry)

• Sherman Anti-Trust Act
  • Public began to dislike monopolies
  • Congress illegalized trusts and monopolies
    • Law is very lax until progressives strengthen it in the early 1900s

Immigration and Urbanization

• Impact of urbanization
  • Increase in need for unskilled labor → rise in immigration
• By 1910, immigrants made up over half the population of 18 major cities
• Old wave immigrants (prior to 1886)
  • Northern & Western Europe
  • Protestant, skilled, literate, some wealth
  • 3 main nationalities
    • German - 5 million immigrants in 19th century
      • Attracted to available farmland in midwest
    • Irish - accounted for ⅓ of immigrants between 1815 to 1885
      • Escaping mass famine
    • Chinese - 25,000 immigrants from 1800 to 1850
      • Attracted to gold rush and railroad labor
• New wave immigrants (1885 - 1930)
  • 9 million new arrivals between 1900 and 1910
    • 3x more than previous decade
  • Characteristics
    • From Eastern and Southern Europe, specifically Italy, Germany, Greece, Poland, Russia, and Austria-Hungary
    • Catholic/Jewish, poor, unskilled, non-native speakers

Immigration Centers

• Ellis Island
  • Built in 1892 as the first ever immigration center
  • Screened immigrants coming into the U.S.
    • Had to provide documents and pass certain tests
    • Permitted 100 lbs of luggage
  • Closed in 1940s and is currently a museum
  • Most European immigrants passed through here
    • 1892-1924: 12 million entered through EI
    • Roughly 2% denied entry
• Angel Island
  • Immigration center in San Francisco, CA
  • Many Asian immigrants passed through
  • More difficult immigration process compared to EI
    • Poor facility, interrogations, extended detainment, etc.

Chinese Exclusion

• First U.S. law to restrict entry based on nationality
• Reduced the amount of legal Chinese immigrants
• Exempted students, merchants, teachers, and diplomats
  • Avoided trade conflict with China
• The Scott Act (1888) - denied re-entry for Chinese citizens after leaving the U.S.
• The Geary Act (1892) - renewed Chinese Exclusion Acts for another 10 years
• Congress repealed the CEA’s after China became a U.S. ally in WWII
• Gentleman’s Agreement (1907-1908) - informal agreement between U.S. and Japan that limited Japanese immigration
  • Japan wanted to stop anti-American riots because Asians were being placed into Asian only schools in the U.S.

Early 20th Century

• Mass transit networks developed
• Cities develop sewers and sanitation depts.
• Better police force
• Full time fire depts.
• Buildings are made from non-flammable materials and are equipped with sprinklers

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

• Owned by Russian immigrants Max Blanck and Isaac Harris
• Rented top 3 floors
• 500+ employees
• Mostly young female immigrants (50% younger than 20)
• Work life
  • 52 hour work week
  • $7-12 per week (pay docked for supplies and errors)
  • Overcrowded
  • 1 bathroom break
  • Door locked from outside to prevent theft or early leaving
• 1911 Factory Fire
  • Building wasn’t up to fire code
  • 145 killed
• Public Response
  • Owners charges with 1st degree murder
  • Unions demand change
    • Organized a public funeral procession for the victims
  • Public sympathy led to changes in policy
• Impacts
  • National Womens’ Trade Union League collected testimony from workers to document unsafe working conditions
    • Created the Citizens Committee for Public Safety
  • 3 months later, NY passed laws regarding fire safety, factory inspection, sanitation, and employment rules for women and children (further provisions added in 1912)

Progressive Era

• A period of social and political reform that included changes in…
  • Urbanization and immigration
  • Workers’ rights
  • Womens’ suffrage
  • African American equality
  • Public education and child labor
  • Temperance

Muckrakers

• Jacob Riis - used photography to advocate for housing reform
  • How the Other Half Lives, 1888, slideshow lecture
    • Became a book in 1890
  • $150 per lecture
  • Chose photos that troubled the middle class
• Upton Sinclair - brought attention to conditions in meat factories
  • The Jungle (1906), King Coal (1917), Oil! (1927)
  • Public reception focused on treatment of food

Consumer Protection Laws

• Meat Inspection Act - 1906
  • Federal guidelines for meat handling & safety
• Pure Food & Drug Act - 1906
  • Ended cross-contamination between foods and medicines
  • Required ingredients and expiration dates on labels
  • Established the FDA to test and certify drugs before hitting the markets

Ending Child Labor

• National Child Labor Committee - 1904
  • Worked to abolish child labor
• Keating-Owen Child Labor Act - 1916
  • Limited the amount of hours a child could work
  • Prohibited the transportation of goods produced by children
  • By 1918, nearly every state had limited/banned child labor

Quiz on laws

1. Which act was passed in 1862 and permitted the government to make grants of public land to private corporations to aid in the construction of the transcontinental railroad?
2. Which act, also passed in 1862, distributed up to 162 acres of land to settlers to encourage westward expansion?
3. Which act, passed in 1882, was the first U.S. law to restrict entry based on nationality, specifically targeting Chinese immigrants?
4. Which act, passed in 1888, denied re-entry for Chinese citizens after leaving the U.S.?
5. Which act, passed in 1892, renewed the Chinese Exclusion Acts for another 10 years and required Chinese residents to carry identification certificates at all times?
6. Which act, passed in 1906 alongside the Meat Inspection Act, ended cross-contamination between foods and medicines and established the FDA to test and certify drugs before hitting the markets?
7. Which act, passed in 1907-1908, was an informal agreement between the U.S. and Japan that limited Japanese immigration?
8. Which act, passed in 1916, limited the amount of hours a child could work and prohibited the transportation of goods produced by children?